What’s for Dinner?

I’ve been trying to cook more. I’ve been married for the last 7 years and Meanie was the one who really cooked. I’m more of a baker than a cook but I can’t feed homemade cookies and cakes to my kids all the time! Meanie would happily eat homemade cookies and cakes all the time but that’s not really a good idea. I dabbled in cooking before but now I’m proud to say I cook more than Meanie! Hee hee hee. My MIL (mother-in-law) came for two weeks earlier this year to help me out with BB when he was a few weeks old. She also gave me cooking lessons! Yay! She taught me how to make simple and basic Vietnamese dinners – like Vietnamese egg omelette, baked chicken legs, chicken leg stew with peas (Hm, I should make that one of these days!) and her infamous chicken curry. (Which I DID try to make and I thought it was a fail. Certainly didn’t taste like my MIL’s! but it was good – my mom said – which is a RARE compliment). Which brings me to a tangent…

Tangent: Do your moms insult your cooking? Is that an Asian mom thing? I’ve mentioned earlier that I love to bake. I used to make Christmas cookies as gifts, when I had time (i.e., before kids). My cookie bags usually contain the “Neiman Marcus” Chocolate Chip cookies, Holiday Biscotti (Giada from Food Network recipe), World Peace Cookies (Chocolate with Sea Salt) and something else I would throw in there. I’d slave away every holiday to make them cookies! Everyone seemed happy with my cookies and I was happy to give them the cookies. Happy to slave away. Till one time, I had this conversation with my mom:

Mom: So you bought the cookies, right?
Me: ..What??
Mom: You bought the cookies and dipped them in chocolate at home and told people you made them, right?
Me: .. WHAT???
Mom: What? You didn’t buy them, like from a store?
Me: I can’t believe you’re saying this to my face! *so utterly insulted*

She said the same thing after I made Pork Belly Buns – she thought I bought them but then when I said I made them, she continued to insult them. Ugh.

That’s just a typical conversation every time I make something. Last time, I made cake balls from the Babycakes cake pop machine – She said they were “too burnt” and then went ahead and ate all of my red velvet cake balls (that I were going to dress in a Candymelt coating). What the heck? Ugh, this deserves a whole blog for itself….one day.

End Tangent.

My weekend was productive. On Saturday, I made a huge batch of baby food for BB – combinations involving sweet potato, broccoli, apple, carrots and pears. About 24 little containers of baby food. That should hold him off for a while. My BB is nice and chunky. I put him in 9-month old pants (He’ll be 8 months next week) and they were capri-length on him. He’s a little happy chunker! Well, most of the time – he’s teething and he’s a grouch a lot of the time, too. He’s sprouted his first tooth (bottom) and it’s still too little to detect in pictures because it just broke the gum line.

Sorry for the craptastic picture.
[I was taking this in a hurry and didn’t get a chance to retake it because CB managed to fall off his chair and started crying AND I was holding a screechy baby with my left arm]

Yesterday I made a huge batch of Broccoli and Cheese Soup (courtesy of Pioneer Woman – I love her and her recipes! I also DVR her Food Network TV show, too. Did I mention I love her?) The recipe is awesome. It’s super simple to make. Had I known that this soup was that easy to make I would have made this long time ago instead of trekking to Panera Bread to get my fix! I also finally busted out my immersion blender to blend it smoothly. I’ve had that since I was married and just never used it till now. I will use it more regularly from now on. I’m on a soup kick now that it’s getting colder. I want to make Butternut Squash soup, Carrot soup and now my next project is Wild Mushroom Bisque soup. Au Bon Pain has these soups in their soup line-up but the one closest to my work has closed down! 😦

I also made Banana Cake balls with the cake pop machine but I didn’t like how it turned out. I’m sure my mom is munching on them this very minute and planning on insulting me about them later on. *rolls eyes*

I was planning on posting all of my dinner options in this post but I realized it would be way too long of an entry so that will come another time. Till then!

6 responses to “What’s for Dinner?”

i’m bookmarking your cookie recipes! i still hardly ever cook, but i still love to bake. my mother doesn’t get to criticize my cooking, because she knows i hardly ever cook. i wonder if your mom is just incredulous that you can produce these kinds of baking. she probably doesn’t bake, right?

Hi Sarah! I don’t know what’s up with my mom. She praises my sister for cooking whatever she does but she always seems to insult me. What’s up with that? Favoritism? Blah. My mom does bake and we always tell her it’s good. You’d figure she’d return the favor, right? NOT. 🙂

Omg…that’s my mom too…Not as bad but she always insulted me w/something. It’s reverse psychology and it’s they’re way of thinking they can help you continue to improve and make things even better despite how AWESOME it is already. I’ve tried reverse psychology on my kids and it doesn’t work. In fact, it backfired on me big time. Your mom (like my mom) is old skool chinese where yelling and insulting is they’re way of saying they love you and they’re only yelling to ‘encourage’ you to keep doing what you do and keep getting better at it…SUCKS sometimes b/c you can’t help but wonder why they have to be that way….

Hi Jen! I’d LIKE to think it’s like constructive criticism but I think that’s giving her too much benefit of doubt. LOL. People said I should take it as a compliment because she thinks it’s store bought. I guess like a back handed compliment? But it’s insulting at the same time! I will never understand her! Hee hee!